Public hearing on Cape Wind next Tuesday

Friday

Mar 7, 2008 at 2:00 AM

By Jason Graziadei I&M Assistant Editor

The intense debate over the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound will touch down on the island next week when the federal Minerals Management Service holds a public hearing on the $1 billion project Tuesday night at Nantucket High School.

Cape Wind Associates, which hopes to build 130 turbines on Horseshoe Shoal capable of supplying three- quarters of the Cape and Islands’ electricity demand, will likely hear sharp criticism from members of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the chief opposition group to the project.

But there is also local support for the project, spearheaded by the Nantucket chapter of Clean Power Now, a pro-wind farm group whose island members include Laura Wasserman and Carl Borchert.

In the only recent gauge of the island’s public opinion toward the wind farm proposal, a 2006 non-binding ballot question asked whether the town should “support the generation of electricity by wind power as proposed for a site in Nantucket Sound,” to which 66 percent of island voters said “no.”

The hearing is one in a series of public forums put on by the MMS around the region, and others will be held in West Yarmouth, Martha’s Vineyard and in Boston. Nantucket’s session will begin at 5 p.m. in the high school auditorium.

The public hearings come on the heels of a largely positive draft environmental impact statement released by the MMS on the project that found no major environmental impacts from the proposal.

In nearly all of the potentially-affected resources covered in the report, including water quality, marine mammals, aviation and boat traffic, recreation and tourism, the MMS report concluded there would be only minor to negligible impacts on those resources.

Cape Wind communications director Mark Rodgers said this week that company representatives would attend all the hearings, but would likely not weigh in on the debate and instead just listen to the testimony.

“Cape Wind is really just going to listen,” Rodgers said. “We think it’s great the public has had so many opportunities to offer input on this project. Already, there’s been more public input on Cape Wind than any energy project in the history of Massachusetts. (The Alliance) has a sophisticated campaign in place to try to flood the hearing, and we hope islanders of all points of view get to go and speak their mind and not be intimidated by those who don’t support the project.”

Audra Parker, the director of strategic planning for the Alliance, said there were a number of issues the draft impact statement left unresolved, including navigation safety for boats and planes, and the cost of the electricity the project would produce. She said the island has already come out largely against the Cape Wind proposal, and hoped that those who felt strongly about it would attend the hearing.

“We’re just encouraging people to speak out against this outrage and the negative impacts that we would endure here on the Cape and Islands,” Parker said. “This is a critical juncture in the process. In a lot of situations, the cart is before the horse. The public safety issue is huge, particularly for Nantucket, with the airport and both ferry lines opposed to the project. It’s important to go speak out against it.”

Cape Wind’s impact on coastal and marine birds, water turbidity, demersal eggs and larvae, as well as the views of Nantucket Sound from shore, were found to be “moderate” in the MMS report. The “moderate” classification is clarified in the report with the language “impacts to the affected activity or community are unavoidable and proper mitigation would reduce impacts substantially during the life of the proposed action...Once the impacting agent is eliminated, the affected activity or community would return to a condition with no measurable effects from the proposed action if proper remedial action is taken.”

In a recent interview, Cape Wind president Jim Gordon said he hopes 2008 is the final year of permitting for the project, which he proposed more than seven years ago, and anticipates that construction could begin as early as 2010. He added that he has already spent over $30 million to get the project to this point in the permitting process.

The release of the MMS environmental impact statement and the slate of public hearings may seem like deja-vu to those who haven’t closely followed the wind farm proposal. The Army Corps of Engineers released a similar, positive environmental report in 2004, when it was the lead regulatory agency reviewing the project, and also held a public hearing on the island in 2005. With the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the jurisdiction over the permitting of offshore wind energy projects was shifted to the MMS, which began its own environmental review process of Cape Wind.

Those who attend next week’s public hearing will be required to register with the MMS one hour before entering the auditorium, and though an option to pre-register by phone had previously been advertised in the Federal Register, the MMS said Friday registration can only be done in person. The 60-day public comment period for the project ends on March 20 and written comments can be sent to: MMS Cape Wind Energy Project, TRC Environmental Corporation, Wannalancit Mills, 650 Suffolk Street, Lowell, Massachusetts 01854.

Once the public comment period and the local public hearings are completed, the MMS will issue a final environmental impact statement and decide whether to issue a permit for the project. Still, Cape Wind requires 19 other permits and approvals from local, state and federal agencies before construction can begin. Most recently, the Cape Cod Commission, a regional planning agency, denied Cape Wind’s application for the siting of its transmission line in Yarmouth strictly on procedural grounds, stating that it did not have enough information. Cape Wind has appealed that decision to the state Energy Facilities Siting Board. The siting board, however, has already approved the connection of the wind farm’s electric cables to the state transmission system in May 2005, a decision that was upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

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